


Where There’s Smoke

by broedym



Series: Restaurant Wars [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Restaurant, Babies, Chef Poe, DameRey, Established Relationship, F/M, Grad student Rey, Modern AU, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 20:18:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18630568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broedym/pseuds/broedym
Summary: Rey deals with change slowly, but that's all her life has been lately - a series of changes... some planned, some less so.





	Where There’s Smoke

**Author's Note:**

> Continuing my Restaurant Wars series because I'm procrastinating writing other things, and because Poe as a chef is my jam.

****Rey was done with surprises.

Some of them were good, like when she’d received a partial scholarship to grad school, or the smaller ones like when Poe had an extra large serving of her favorite pasta waiting when she studied late at the library.

Those she welcomed. Others took a little more getting used to, but she got there in the end.

Rey’s biggest and most wondrous surprise was sitting in a high chair when she arrived home from class, with a face covered in puréed pumpkin.

Not all surprises were as good as her daughter turned out to be.

“Would you care to explain this?” Poe asked before she’d had a chance to put her bag down. He tossed a baby food pouch onto the kitchen bench with a flourish.

“‘Hello, darling. How was your day?’ Just fine thanks, honey,” she replied as good-humoredly as her tiredness allowed. Rey went over to kiss the baby’s head, avoiding the orange mush and gushing in an exaggerated tone that had her daughter smiling an open-mouthed grin.

It was a full minute of baby talk and pumpkin sampling from small fingers until she looked up to find Poe glowering at her, an unexpected and unwanted expression. She huffed a breath.

“What the hell is that?” he said, nodding towards the offending item on the bench.

Rey’s eyes narrowed as she read the packaging. “That one is banana, pear and zucchini.”

“ _That_ one? How many more of them are there?”

She turned away from him and fetched a wet wipe so she could clean up some of the remnants of the baby’s supper from her face.

“I’m serious, Rey.”

“Daddy’s serious,” she exclaimed to the baby in a faux-grumpy voice and was rewarded with a chortle of laughter. The sound never failed to elicit a smile and she removed the messy bib so she could free her daughter from the high chair and snuggle her properly. Once she’d had her fill of pudgy-cheeked kisses and contagious giggles, Rey faced him again, the baby nestled at her hip.

“I thought we agreed we weren’t going to feed Ava any of this processed sh— ... stuff.”

She had to smirk. Even when he was annoyed he still managed to curtail his language, a pact they’d made when the baby had started making noises that would turn into words before too long. Neither of them wanted her mimicking their swearing, especially Poe whose colorful curses had been honed working as a chef for more than half his life.

“It’s just a convenience thing,” she said with a shrug.

“It’s bull-S-H-I-T,” he spelled out, his voice dropping to a whisper as if to further shield impressionable ears, before returning to regular volume. “There is a fridge full of proper food I make every day, from scratch. Using organic produce.”

Rey’s patience with his mood was at an end. “And sometimes it’s easier to let her suck on one of those pouches when I have work to do. Or when I’m running late to take her to daycare. Because sometimes I run late when I have to get to class or when I’ve been up half the night studying and pumping and changing diapers.”

She hated that he looked momentarily betrayed, as if she were insinuating that he didn’t participate in their daughter’s care as much as she did. Because he did, yet she couldn’t help but be a little resentful that he made it look so much easier. Poe was rarely overwhelmed like she sometimes felt, he didn’t cry in frustration when Ava wouldn’t settle, or get pissed off when the Diaper Genie was full and it was his turn to empty it. He was frustratingly unflappable like that.

But, she reminded herself, Poe wasn’t four months pregnant with baby number two before the first one was walking.

Surprise.

 

The realization that she was pregnant the first time came as a shock. Rey certainly hadn’t planned it – that momentary forgetfulness while they traveled through Central America on her first overseas trip. Two days of a stomach bug hadn’t help either when she couldn’t keep anything down including the pill.

They’d spent an incredible six weeks eating and sightseeing and spending time with Poe’s extended family in Guatemala. He’d patiently translated everything for her, though she tried hard to pick up as much Spanish as she could. He was in his element, conversing passionately with the locals about street food and scribbling down ideas in a well-worn notebook. Rey had never been exposed to so many different cultures and new experiences on a daily basis. They had never spent so much time together either, but instead of wanting to kill each other like she feared, they grew even closer. She loved travelling, and she loved Poe, of those two things she was certain.

Rey had initially balked at the idea of going away for so long, as much as she had dreamed of it her whole life. She only had a few months before starting grad school and she needed to earn as much as she could from her waitressing job at his restaurant. He had been persistent, downright begged her to go with him, and she hadn’t regretted it for a second once she acquiesced.

That was until she arrived home sunburnt, weary, and knocked up.

She blamed her own carelessness. She blamed Poe’s super sperm. She wondered if she could sue the pharmaceutical company – how could one (or two or three) slip ups render the pill so ineffective after years of being on it? She panicked when she thought about having to tell him.

They had been together almost a year, hardly the proper amount of time to be contemplating having a child together. Rey liked to imagine they would spend the rest of their lives together, but she was damned if she would let a surprise pregnancy jeopardize everything she’d worked so hard for, or trap her boyfriend into a commitment they hadn’t even contemplated yet.

Rey stressed about it constantly for three days after she got the results (verified by a doctor when she refused to believe the first few home pregnancy tests). She had to make a decision. She had to tell him.

In the end he’d cried more than she did, albeit happier tears, and proposed on the spot. They talked through the night, weighing up all the pros and cons, and even though the latter outnumbered the former, they emerged from the longest conversation of their lives emotional, exhausted, and engaged.

And baby makes three.

Four, once they added the rescue pup to ease into the whole parenting thing. Rey figured they may as well go hard or go home. What didn’t kill them would make them stronger.

That was before Unplanned Pregnancy: The Sequel.

 

This time was definitely Rose’s fault. She was the one who insisted that Rey and Poe needed a night to themselves, and offered to babysit five-month-old Ava. She and Finn had sent them on their way – one whole night in a swanky hotel courtesy of Leia, a perk of working for the hospitality magnate.

There wasn’t time for a honeymoon after their simple city hall wedding with only Rose, Finn and Poe’s dad in attendance. With her studies and Poe’s work they’d barely had any time away together between getting married and Ava being born. If Rose hadn’t offered to babysit they never would have gone. Rey wouldn’t have had an extra glass of red wine because she’d pumped that afternoon and it would be out of her system by the time she needed to breastfeed again. She and Poe wouldn’t have had the time or energy to have sex twice if they had stayed at home. At least in between they got to sleep for a few glorious, uninterrupted hours.

This time she arrived home a little less tired, desperate to cuddle the baby, and knocked up.

Rey wanted to scream at the people who told her later it was an old wives’ tale that you couldn’t get pregnant while breastfeeding. She didn’t appreciate being smugly lectured to by the doctor for not taking precautions when she’d barely had a normal cycle since giving birth.

Poe insisted he was happy about the new baby, despite the daunting prospect of having two children under two before she graduated. Ava would grow up with a sibling, he reasoned, something both he and Rey had missed out on. It was a good thing, he assured her, it happened for a reason.

But it was a good two months before the shock wore off for Rey, as they prepared their lives to change even more.

 

The Central American trip had been Leia’s idea, an incentive as much as inspiration for Poe as he finally prepared to open his second restaurant at her new boutique hotel the following year. He had his hands full with work at _Yavin_ , designing the new restaurant menu, and helping take care of the baby so Rey could go to classes. Between all that, her time consuming studies and Ava’s teething, it was any wonder both their tempers were easily fractured when it came to dumb stuff like packaged baby food.

But Poe’s accusing tone about it was a step too far for Rey that night. He had always been annoyingly righteous about what their child ate once she was introduced to solids. It wasn’t every kid who had a two-star Michelin chef to cook her meals, yet Rey knew it was more than that. It was because he wanted only the very best for their daughter. She was the reason new genres of reading materials began appearing on his neatly ordered shelves of cookbooks – countless titles on nutrition and parenting and even early childhood education. There was no doubt Ava was his pride and joy.

That part Rey understood. She wasn’t prepared for how much she changed when she became a mother, how much she loved the baby from the moment she was born. All her parenting fears thanks to her own tumultuous childhood were gone, faded into irrelevance when she held her daughter for the first time. It was everything and nothing like she imagined, and despite being perpetually exhausted and the subsequent minutes, hours and days that were a struggle, she couldn’t imagine her life any other way now.

“We need to talk,” Poe said solemnly, after Rey thought she had made it quite clear she was in no mood to argue about baby food.

On that ominous statement she left him to sulk while she bathed the baby then settled into the chair in Ava’s room to feed her before bed. It was their special time and she hated missing it if she had a late class or other commitment. Fortunately that didn’t include shifts at the restaurant any longer, in heels that pinched while serving obnoxious patrons. Though she missed the money, and had to get used to not earning anything for the first time in her adult life, Rey didn’t regret giving up her job at _Yavin._ Especially once the news broke that she and Poe were together, after an ill-timed run in with Leia and Ben when they were out one night.  

She took her time breastfeeding, and left Ava to sleep in her arms for a while after. When she couldn’t put off continuing the conversation-cum-argument about baby food with her husband any longer, Rey returned to the kitchen to find him putting the finishing touches to their dinner. It was her favorite of his new menu ideas, but it wasn’t clear if it was a coincidence or a peace offering when he didn’t say anything. Deciding to be the bigger person, she wrapped her arms around his waist as he stood at the range, and rested her chin on his shoulder.

“Is that for me?” she asked coyly.

“Uh huh.”

She pressed a warm kiss onto his neck. “Does that mean you’ve forgiven me for giving our daughter packaged baby food?”

Poe’s cheek twitched. “I guess so.”

Rey’s arms tightened and she nosed the soft dark curls behind his ear with a contented sigh.

“But I can’t do this anymore,” he said, his voice low. “We need to talk.”

She froze where she was and his body tensed slightly in response. They’d fought plenty of times over things far more important than baby food, but he’d never used that line with her before. Now he’d done it twice. She wondered if she’d missed the signs of something bigger, something more threatening to their small family. As was her nature she assumed the worst, like the past few years meant nothing and it was all going to come crashing down. It wasn’t the first time she’d felt it, as if it were inevitable because of the way they’d rushed into everything. Right from the stupid moment he’d first cooked for her and complimented her smile – the moment she was a goner.

After a few seconds when it felt like she forgot how to breathe, Rey pulled away from him. A wave of nausea washed through her, and it had nothing to do with her morning sickness that had already passed for the most part. Poe switched the burner off and shifted the pan aside, his movements slow like he was delaying something he didn’t want to do. She swiped her hand over her mouth when he turned around, her fingers coming away moist from the sweat that beaded above her top lip. Rey wished for once that the baby would wake up like she had as a newborn, or the dog needed to be walked, anything to help her avoid whatever he was about to say.

“Just say it then,” she said.

“Okay.” He wiped his hands on a towel and paused, and she had to wonder if he was deliberately trying to increase her stress levels. “I’ve been thinking a lot about everything lately, how I’ve been spending so much time prepping the new restaurant. I’m going to talk to Leia about stepping down at _Yavin._ ”

Though Rey had expected to hear something very different, she still felt sick and frowned from incomprehension. “What?”

Poe leaned against the front of the range, impervious to the residual heat. “It’s time I got out. Finn’s ready to take over permanently. And I’m going to find someone else to run the new kitchen, too.”

“Why would you do that?”

He shrugged. “I can’t do both and this as well.”

“This?”

“This,” he said, gesturing around him. “Us. All of it.”

Rey still wasn’t sure what to think, or if she was supposed to interpret it as an indictment of her contribution to their family life. Poe was the one who insisted she stay in grad school when Ava was born so as not to derail her studies, and had already reduced his lengthy time at the restaurant to stay home more. His long standing working relationship with Leia meant he was given far more latitude than most. But giving it up completely was not something he’d ever brought up before. It's not what chefs did, not at his level and with his awards and reputation. 

She crossed her arms and didn’t break his stare. “The new place as well?”

“It’ll be up and running before this one gets here.” He nodded towards the small bump of her belly. “I'll hire a head chef rather than run it myself.”

“Since when? You were so excited about the new restaurant.”

“There are other things that are more important right now.”

“But…” Rey paused for a beat, “it’s what you do. It’s who you are. You’re going to get out of the kitchen completely?”

“For now.”

She shook her head, her sense of relief that it wasn't something more catastrophic mixed with confusion and guilt. 

“You shouldn’t have to give it all up. We’re making it work, mostly,” she argued as she grabbed the pouch of baby food. “This was just easier sometimes. I barely gave them to her and there are no preservatives. It tastes fine, see?”

Rey unscrewed the lid and squirted some of the purée into her mouth. Poe looked amused as her expression contorted slightly when she swallowed it. Gone were the days she could eat anything, thanks to him and his exceptional cooking. She was ruined forever.

With a silent acknowledgement of her defeat she replaced the lid and threw the pouch in the trash.

“All I’m saying is you don’t have to give up your career,” Rey said contritely. "It's not fair to you..."

He offered her an indulgent smile. “I’m not doing it because of that shit. And it's not like I’m being a martyr.” He reached out to take hold of her hand and fingered the plain platinum wedding band she wore that matched his. “I want to be here more. For you and for Ava and for this one. The restaurants can wait.”

A flood of emotion made her want to tear up, an unwelcome side effect of the hormones currently coursing through her body. It only took a few seconds, however, until her thoughts darkened again.

“Can we afford that? I still have another year to go, and it might take me a while to find a decent job.” She bit her lip, ever the pragmatist. And ever the kid who’d grown up not always knowing where her next meal was coming from.

“I’m not stopping work completely,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ll still consult. My menu work is kinda in demand these days.”

“What about Leia? Won’t she be angry? What if _Yavin_ loses its stars? You're the reason people go there.”

“Leia will be fine with it. She knows I need a break.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “We’ll be okay, I promise. But this is something I really want to do.”

“Okay,” Rey said with a trace of uncertainty. “It’s just… I don’t what you to give up what you love doing.”

“I’m not. Get it? This is exactly where I want to be.” He cupped her cheek with his other hand and kissed her tenderly, and Rey finally felt some of her tension melt away. Then he pulled away and made a face. “Gross. You taste like shitty banana and zucchini.”

“It won’t kill you, you food snob,” she said, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him again. Then she just held him close, trying to quiet her worries and trust that it would work out. When he rubbed her back she could almost believe it. Her rumbling stomach finally forced her to let him go with a light shove. “Feed me something better then. I’m pregnant and starving.”

“I can do that.”

Poe retrieved the pan and served them both a bowl while she set the table and contemplated what came next. Rey never thought she’d see the day where he stopped being a lauded executive chef, but then she’d never imagined so much of what she now held dear.

Maybe the occasional surprise wasn’t so bad after all.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
